Mass Effect: Wendigo
by Nowhere King
Summary: Ten years have passed since the Reapers ravaged the Milky Way. The scarred survivors have nearly rebuilt all that was lost in the desperate war. A young turian pilot suffers the misfortune of encountering the galaxy's most powerful and dangerous man one fateful night and gets caught up in a mad series of events that will ultimately decide the very fate of all galactic civilization.
1. Chapter One: Gone Clubbing

**CHAPTER ONE: GONE CLUBBING**

Flight Lieutenant, O1 Teera blinked tiredly at the dull, orange glow of her assigned terminal, the light illuminating the apathy in her exhausted brown eyes. She put a hand to her forehead and began rubbing to alleviate the mild headache she was getting from staring at a computer screen for only spirits know how goddman long she'd been in this miserable, grey box of an office. The C-Sec Debarkation office was about as utilitarian and depressing as a room could get, and she'd been in here from morning till dusk for the past two weeks now.

She began wringing her hands to escape the agony of her carpal tunnel and listened to the nearly cacophonous death that was the bleak silence of her temporary office...except for the muffled hum of the utterly dogshit, nigh Prothean era ancient ventilation and the exasperated breathing of her nearby C-Sec liaison...who was named...whose name was…(Uh…"Martha?" "Marithia?" "Marathon?" "Cunty McCunterson?")...certainly a name that she remembered.

"What's her bloody name?" Teera's overt whisper prompted the liaison to turn her blue head over at her turian coworker. Teera played ignorant. Eventually, the liaison lost interest and resumed her own miserably drab work at her own miserably drab terminal.

Teera inwardly snickered. Her hands and wrists were absolutely mangled, though. She removed both the gloves of her uniform, exposing the tawny scales of her taloned mitts. She started working out the kinks in her hands while contemplating the absurdity of turian "decency." Showing one's talons in turian society was supposedly telling of one's barbarism and indecency. She smirked and began shaking both hands vigorously over her desk to get some blood flow going, nearly knocking over her cup of quiderx juice in the process. She cursed under her breath. The blue concoction was the only thing keeping her awake right now. Well, that and her infantile sense of humor.

She began tapping her mandibles with her talons, pondering what she was supposed to be doing. She lost her track of thought and began tapping a beat on both her mandibles in sync with the hum of the ventilation and her co worker's breathing, playing a mad drum solo in her own cosmically fun-deprived mind that nearly sent her into a fit of giggles. She caught herself, muffling her snickering enough only to warrant a brief glance from her blue cohort. The straight-laced squidhead was enough a tool to merit any number of billets within the turian military. But what was she supposed to be doing again?

"Fookin' 'ell...what was I...uh…" The little, brown turian remembered.

"Right. Volus ship. ID. Gross weight...somethin' else…" She glanced from the footage of her terminal's security camera window over to her own word processor window...back to the footage...and then to the customs window that displayed the ship's basic information.

She began typing out the info in earnest finally:

Volus merchant vessel docking/debarkation approval

Ship Class: Mercantile vessel/cargo

Ship Citadel ID: MD4-2344457

Ship Name: Velasko

Ship Owner: Hen Forl

Current captain: Hen Forl, the thickest cunt to have ever drawn breath.

Gross weight: fart

Cargo weight: cockshite

Military past/current status: I am extraordinarily bored right now.

Armaments: I'd rather huff metal solvent until I go blind than continue to do this.

Cargo classification: If the Reapers came back to vaporize me right now, I'd be ecstatic.

By this point, Teera was audibly cracking up at her own jokes. Of course, she couldn't submit this "information" officially to C-Sec. She groaned and proceeded to delete her noncommittal handiwork. This was agony. She wasn't cut out for this garbage. She was a damn pilot. And not just any pilot. She was objectively the finest pilot in the turian military. Maybe even the galaxy. And here she was...typing away like any other gormless, slack-jawed office drone. But she had to endure. She and her carrier group were only here for another three days until they deployed again.

Thanks to the "generosity" of her carrier group's commander, Admiral Cockmunch, the entirety of her unit had been forced to assist C-Sec with some of their clerical work while housed in the C-Sec barracks in the Upper Citadel in return for their "hospitality." Of course...this was her first time ever visiting the Citadel...so of course...she'd had little to no chance to see any of the sights. Her shift was almost over...but she still had three more days of this varren cockery. Just three more days...three more days…

"OI! CUNT!" The sudden expletive shout caused Teera and her asari counterpart to jump.

The turian girl turned. It was her immediate superior, Dexra. First Class. An O2. The tall, grey turian woman clad in the same light grey with light blue highlights naval uniform as Teera was laughing as she strode over to her subordinate's desk.

"Hehehe...did I get the vernacular right, English?" Teera clicked her mandibles in irritation. (Yer fookin' gay, mate.)

"Yeah. Proper ape you are, ma'am. You've come a long way. Well done." The asari liaison glared angrily at the grey turian for her disruption. Much to Teera's delight, Dexra ignored her.

"I like to think so. Human culture is so complicated. Hundreds of languages and nationalities. Spirits." Teera smirked at the irony of Dexra's statement. The tall woman's dark blue facial tattoos were the same as her parents', denoting allegiance to the Parthian Colony as a carryover from the Unification Wars. This was a very long time ago. Humans had no such similar span of time to squish all their cultures and allegiances together in the same grey-on-grey mishmash that was the Turian Hierarchy. There wasn't any single human culture.

"That's why I wouldn't even bother trying to learn it all, were I you, ma'am. It'd take ages."

"Vernacular's fun to use, though." Teera liked her superior, despite her constant references to her subordinate's unique heritage. She was one of the few turians beside herself that knew when to lighten up once in a while. The two were on friendly terms...perhaps...to the point where their command could see their association as "fraternization"...but that was a problem for Future Teera. Current Teera didn't much care.

"Anything's fun when it's a novelty. Anyway…why'd you come in here again?"

"Duty's over. Liberty is now. We're exfiltrating this hellhole." Teera glanced at her terminal's clock. Yep. Shift was over. They were free. Dexra got another scathing look from the asari ten feet away from the pair. She was ignored once again.

"Tits. Let's get outta' here."

"Wanna' hit up Chora's Den?"

"The strip joint? Didn't it close down after the geth fucked it up?"

"Well...yeah. But it's been reopened. And it's better than Dark Star or Flux. Better drinks. Better music. If you don't want an eyeful of stripper ass then don't look." The asari C-Sec officer was beyond irritated once again. And again...neither of the two turians cared.

"Change over and meet you there in an hour?"

"You got it."

"Oh...cocks. Forgot. Have to finish this debark shite 'fore I can go."

"Like hell you do. We're done here. Can you honestly tell me that you'd want to stay here a minute longer than you have to out of your misguided, self-imposed obligation to duty? An obligation that pretty much amounts to being a glorified, sapient word processor for some lazy ass Citadel cops?" The now fuming asari almost turned to say something...then reconsidered. Teera smiled.

"I'd hardly call 'em "lazy." In fact...no idea how they keep this up for twelve hours a day." Dexra leaned over to her friend to whisper.

"Well...you're about to find out if you look over there at your C-Sec buddy for a second." Teera curiously glanced over at the asari.

The woman quietly opened her desk drawer and procured a lightly rattling bottle of prescription pills. She looked over at the turian duo to make sure they weren't watching...the pair pretended to maintain a gossipy conversation in response. The asari relaxed, discreetly opened the bottle from under her desk, and popped one of the pills in her mouth. It was likely a powerful stimulant...some sort of amphetamine derivative for which Teera had a suspicion the asari lacked a legitimate prescription The officer swallowed the pill, shuddered briefly, and continued her typing as though nothing out of place had just occurred. Teera cringed and turned back to her friend.

"Yeah...let's get the hell out of here." Going to a seedy club in the Lower Citadel suddenly seemed like an attractive alternative to hammering out lines of text like a drugged out zombie all day. Hypocrisy at its most blatant. The drug wasn't exactly red sand, but it was a close second. Then again...weren't Asari immune to the effects of sand blasting? She got up from her desk and followed her friend out, not bothering to take her cup of quiderx or to even tidy up her desk. She'd suffered enough already.

"Yes. Let's."

Chora's Den was positively booming with energy. The heavy bass had Teera nodding her head to its pounding rhythm as she and her friend confidently strode across the neon pink and azure club, sacheting their hips as they walked in their somewhat revealing civilian clothes...well...revealing as far as turian wear went. Dexra was especially blatant with her show of femininity. Teera knew what was up. Her superior was here to get trashed and laid. Not necessarily in that order. It was understandable. Their carrier group was leaving the Citadel in a mere span of days, and Dexra wanted to make good use of what little liberty she had.

The tall, grey turian was sporting a scandalously short burgundy skirt, tight shirt, and thigh highs. Her ample hips and ass were fully accentuated along with a generous display of leg. Form fitting clothes were an absolute no-no for turians. What Dexra was wearing was the kind of dress that would literally get her arrested on a turian-controlled planet, but on the Citadel? Fair game. Dexra's choice of dress was made all the more uncomfortable for Teera by the fact that the grey turian looked kind of a like a genderswapped version of her father. She shuddered at the thought.

Teera's own clothes were a bit more modest. Dark grey jacket over a more conservative skirt. But still revealing enough to maybe warrant some attention. She wasn't stripper chique, but she clearly wasn't there to discuss the specs of the upcoming model of Navy fighter with the club's drunken patrons. And hey, her accent made her a novelty. A practical assurance of getting male attention. The two young women slid through the crowd of dancing patrons and sidled up to the counter of the bar. The batarian bartender was expertly mixing drinks in front of a view screen showing a feed of current news of all things. Not the kind of shit that put one in a fun sort of mood. Teera read a scrolling headline about a terrorist group of batarian separatists or something. A mugshot of some high-ranking batarian terrorist popped up...he looked a lot like the bartender. She snickered. Did that make her a racist? Well it wasn't her fault all batarians looked the same, right?

Teera took a seat at one of the stools while Dexra flashed two fingers at the bartender. He nodded and began pouring the two ladies each a drink. He slid them each a glass of potent turian brandy. Without hesitation, Dexra turned hers up all at once and triumphantly slammed her glass on the counter. The bartender grinned at the display. Teera was in no such hurry to black out and end up in an alleyway minus her panties. She turned to look at her friend to find that she had begun chatting up a handsome turian who had seemingly teleported next to her.

The two proceeded to the dance floor and began grinding as per usual of all horny lushes. Teera shook her head and smiled. Dexra didn't need a wing girl at all, it seemed. She lowered her eyes to her drink, watching the effervescent bubbles rising to the surface of the powerful, blue concoction. What was it with her fellow birds and the color "blue?" Blue quiderx. Blue blood. Blue uniforms. Blue this. Blue that. Everything a shade of fucking blue. But her train of thought was disrupted by the heavy movements of a nearby patron. An utterly massive person had just taken up the bar stool next to her. She turned to get a proper look at this gigantic individual.

The man seated next to her was one of the biggest humans upon whom she'd ever lain eyes. She nearly mistook him for a weird looking krogan at first. Even while seated, he towered over her by comparison. She was pretty short for a turian, but that hardly mattered when her height was compared to this bestial figure. He was roughly the height of the average salarian. At least a head taller than the average turian male. Easily over 200 cm tall. And he wasn't slender by any stretch of the imagination. Epic rolls of muscle were apparent under the tight fabric of his light blue Hawaiian-style shirt. The very fair white skin of his massive, heavily veined forearms looked stretched to the limits of its elasticity in containing such muscle. The man had what she knew to be "dirty blond," longish hair gathered loosely behind his gargantuan head. He had highly pronounced back muscles bunching up the fabric of his shirt betwixt the nooks and crannies of their contractions. The broadness of his powerful shoulders were very nearly absurd.

The man rotated in his stool towards the barkeep and ordered a drink with a cavalier grin. He was wearing a pair of circular sunglasses that seemed kind of odd to wear in the dim, sultry light of Chora's Den. He was taking puffs from a thick cigar that he'd procured from the front pocket of his garishly bright shirt. His sharply masculine jawline was covered with thick beard. He looked like a statue of a famous figure in some ancient human culture what with his absurdly manly features….as though they were chiseled out of stone. Like a parody of masculinity itself. Teera could see that nearly every inch of his exposed skin was covered in some sort of scar. Pink lines of damage crisscrossed his stark white flesh. (Shrapnel? Knife cuts?) Blotches of former agony displayed a history of entry and exit wounds. Splashes of burn damage everywhere. She could see deeply pronounced scars streaking across his handsome visage over his nose...down both his lips...across his left cheek.

This man was a soldier of sorts. Definitely a veteran of the Reaper Wars. Was he here on shore leave? Mercenary? He was wearing black combat boots and drab, brown military trousers. Yeah. He had to be something like that. Well, whoever he was, he was pretty goddamn attractive for such a grizzled, scarred up tough guy. That gentle, good-natured smile on his face...she noticed the little freckles dotting his scarred but fair skin. Despite his brutish appearance...he was actually pretty cute. As intimidating as his appearance was, his demeanor was nothing but gentle and jovial. Her heart fluttered a bit. She self-consciously straightened herself up. He might have been a bit too muscular for some girls, but he was definitely her cup of tea. She frantically began forming a plan of approach in her head. The pounding music and sensory overload wasn't helping her thought process much, but she had a few good ideas.

Buy him a drink? Introduce herself afterwards? No. She'd lived on a human colony for the entirety of her life before she'd left for the service. She knew human (Well, English.) culture well enough to know she wasn't supposed to do that. Men were supposed to buy women drinks and make the approach. Then how the fuck was she supposed to let this guy know she was into him? Throw something at him? Wave? Fart? Sit in his lap? Grab his dick? Scream a racial slur at him? (Oi! Pyjak! Nice arse! What would Dexra do here?) But her plan of seduction was halted by the unwanted arrival of a third party.

An asari stripper sidled up to the big man, parted his knees and slid herself up to him. Waist to waist. Groin to groin. One of her petite, blue hands began sensually massaging the man's powerful left thigh. He seemed to like her attention. Anger and jealousy clouded Teera's mind. Yeah...she probably wasn't going to even approach the guy at all, but she would've appreciated having the option available. Leave it to a squidhead to ruin the moment. She continued watching the pair out of the corner of her eye. The stripper leaned seductively forward to whisper something into the big man's ear. He nodded and tilted his head in a direction. The asari's smile disappeared entirely. Had the guy told her to piss off?

The stripper took her leave and began walking across the dance floor towards the direction of two massive krogan bouncers who were probably guarding the management back rooms. She approached the one on the left and whispered something in his ear. The krogan took a light hold of her hand and left his post with her, prompting the other krogan to adopt a look of bewilderment. Was she giving him a lap dance or something? While he was at work? The fuck was going on? Something wasn't right. She turned her eyes back towards the brute next to her.

This guy was up to something. She hadn't noticed it before, but the subtle cues of his body language...something was off. His forehead was coated in a sheen of light sweat. His right hand that was holding his drink was shaking a bit. His left eyebrow was twitching. His body was swaying back and forth slightly in his stool...was he drunk? And his smile. It no longer felt genuine. Hiis affable manner was...too affable. As though he was trying to be as obvious and overt about it as he could...to deflect suspicion, maybe? Underneath his facade of geniality, there was something cold. Clinical. Angry even. She began to feel afraid.

She looked around the club, desperately trying to find her friend so they could get the fuck out of this place. Something was about to go down. Teera knew she was an immature, silly person, but she was a pilot first and foremost. Her instincts had never led her astray before, and right now...there was a veritable alarm klaxon going off inside her head. She couldn't find Dexra and her new paramour anywhere. Had the two run off to do the deed in a room somewhere? She cursed, praying that the massive individual next to her wouldn't notice her near panic. He appeared not to. He finished his drink, rose from his seat, and put out his cigar in a nearby ashtray, still sporting that mask of a grin. He left the bar and headed towards the now solitary krogan bouncer.

Teera's curiosity had now gotten the better of her. Was she about to witness tomorrow's news in the making? The big man had begun talking to the krogan. The krogan began posturing, trying to intimidate the blond giant. The human was entirely unfazed. Eventually, the krogan seemed to relent and pointed towards the back room, prompting the human to start walking in that direction. The krogan followed him. Teera was frightened. But she had to know what was happening. Dexra was nowhere to be seen in the club anyway. She left the bar and headed towards the back room herself, making her way through the dancing crowd of drunken imbeciles until she'd made it to the narrow corridor leading to the club's management rooms.

She followed the length of the corridor to the now muffled pounding of the club music's rhythmic bass, taking note of the refurbished metal walls that had replaced all the old explosion warped, slug riddled walls. They'd done a nice job of unfucking the place, but it seemed as though history was about to repeat itself. Why was she doing this? She'd done some stupidly risky shit before in the cockpit of her fighter. No doubt. But this was something else entirely. She wasn't a soldier proper. Not a cop. If anything serious went down, she was screwed. And yet she continued down the corridor. Why? But the sudden sight of something truly horrible had stopped her dead in her tracks.

She'd reached the big door leading to the management office. It was closed. And leaning up against it was the ravaged body of the same krogan bouncer that the big man had talked to before. Only now...his throat was torn open. Bright orange spurts of blood were streaming down his burgundy colored armor and congealing in a dark orange pool. It was the same color as her terminal in the C-Sec Debark office. The man's body was twitching, kicking its feet uncontrollably as the big krogan died. After a few seconds had passed, the light faded from his eyes. His body lay still. He had died with his eyes open. There was blood everywhere. On the walls. Streaking down the corridor all the way to the door. Splatters on the ceiling. Everywhere. Teera wretched and tried to control her sudden nausea. The krogan's body looked as though it had been mauled by an animal. She had never seen a body so badly brutalized. How could a sapient, conscious person do something so awful to another? Teera could scarcely breath from her terror now. Why wasn't she hauling ass back the way she came? But she couldn't. She had to know. She examined the damage on the body.

Both the man's arms had been pulverized. The dull burgundy armor covering his hands and wrists was crushed like a tin can. The imprint of human fingers was clearly impressed upon where the krogan had been crushed. She shook her head. There was no way. No way any human could have done this. Even another krogan couldn't have done this. But here was the evidence. The eyes of the man were bloodshot. Wide open, utterly shocked, and completely terrified. Much like her own at the moment. Against what tiny fragment of herself that constituted her "better judgement," Terra placed her head against the closed and locked metal door to listen to what was happening on the other side.

She heard a man whimpering. Weeping. Sniveling. He was begging for his life.

"Nonononono...please, God, no...don't fuckin' do it, man…please don't…" Another voice responded. A rougher, deeper voice.

"Be quiet." Teera heard a sudden Thunk! And then the unmistakable sound of a body crumpling to the floor. She knew the first noise. It was the discharge of a suppressed mass accelerated firearm. She'd been shooting with her mum and dad long enough to know the sound.

Teera's terror finally overrode her morbid curiosity. She turned and started sprinting down the corridor towards the dance floor. She had to grab Dexra, wherever she was, and get the fuck out of there. Then what? Go to C-Sec? Notify her command? But it wasn't meant to be. The sudden harsh, gasping hiss of a pressurized gas began echoing in the corridor. The fire suppression system had been activated. Clouds of thick, white gas were spraying in torrents from every conceivable angle in the ceiling. She began struggling to breathe. In the enclosed space of the narrow corridor, the gas was beginning to choke her. People on the dance floor began screaming and hastening towards the club's exit.

Teera collapsed to her hands and knees. The jets of white carbon gas were choking the life out of her. Apparently, the people who installed the fire suppression system didn't understand that maybe the fire would be the least of peoples' worries in such an enclosed space. So...this was how she was going to die? She began to weep. After all the close calls, after all the high stakes combat missions she'd flown...she was going to suffocate in a white cloud of gas that was intended to save people from burning to death. She began laughing hysterically through her tears. She would never see her parents again. Her friends. This was her final moment. Black tendrils of darkness began creeping around the edges of her vision. She was going to black out after all. Dexra could've saved her credits on Teera's drink.

But her lamentations were interrupted by her suddenly being lifted bodily into the air. A powerful arm had grabbed her around her slender waist and hoisted her off the ground as though she weighed nothing at all. Was she being rescued?

"P-please..." It was all she could say through her fit of coughing panic.

She didn't want to die like this. She weakly placed a hand on the arm carrying her, trying to intangibly convey her plea for salvation and gratitude for any attempt at doing so. The arm was rock solid. Extremely warm to the touch. Almost hot. Her dizziness had played havoc on her motor skills. One of her talons on her left hand had sliced through the thin fabric of her glove. In her clumsiness, she had accidentally slashed the powerful arm of her savior. But her rescuer paid this injury little mind. She was being carried away from the corridor towards the open air of the dance floor at an absurd speed. Suddenly, she could breathe again. She inhaled and sputtered.

She was in the open air of the now empty club, the alarm klaxon echoing throughout almost in sync with the pulsating, electric rhythm of the music that was still playing. Her rescuer gently set her down on a nearby couch. She somewhat regained her senses and looked up at her hero. She was seized by terror at the sight of who it was. It was the massive, blond human from before. He was blankly staring at her as she sputtered and coughed. He was now dressed in the standard speckled blue camo of a Systems Alliance military uniform. A military cover was seated on his large head, the bill pulled down low over his eyes. He was no longer wearing his sunglasses. His intense, ethereal blue eyes would have been truly beautiful and stunning were it not for their utterly terrifying, stone dead gaze. Like a robot. No emotion. Dead. He wasn't looking at a person. He was looking through her. Teera could see the deep cut she'd made on the man's arm. A thick torrent of crimson was pouring from it and dripping to the floor. She quickly stammered an apology through her coughing.

"S-sorry...I didn't m-mean…"

The man only continued to stare. In her terror, she had put out both her hands in front of her to weakly protect herself from her inevitable death. He was going to kill her. He had only carried her away from the smoky corridor to murder her here. Her sense of reason had been impinged by fear. Through her coughing and tears she began begging meekly for her life. She couldn't possibly hope to defend herself from this monster.

"I...I...please...I didn't see anything!" It was a lie. She had seen a lot. She had seen his face. She was a witness. And he knew it, too.

"I'm sorry…" It was all she could say. She couldn't think of anything else.

Remarkably...the man's gaze softened. His body relaxed. His eyes filled with an unmistakable sadness. He reached over to his left wrist and activated an omni-tool. The familiar orange construct beeped quietly...and then the massive image of the man nearly disappeared entirely. He'd cloaked himself. She watched his camouflaged silhouette disappear into the slowly dispersing white haze of the fire suppressive gaseous agent. He had left. She collapsed into a terrified heap on the couch and began shivering. How close had she come to being reduced to a bloody, blue smear on the floor of a seedy strip joint? She covered her face with her hands and rolled into a pathetic ball on the couch. She was ashamed. She'd never been so scared in her entire life.

Some badass pilot she was. People had died. And here she was cowering on a dirty couch upon which probably countless numbers of asari asses had sat to initiate countless numbers of lap dances. Could she have prevented any of this had she simply run to find a C-Sec officer the second she sensed trouble? No. The entire ordeal had lasted less than five minutes total. The scarred blonde giant was incredibly fast. Obscenely so. There was nothing she could have done. Teera wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to regain her composure. She calmed herself a bit...but a sudden flood questions filled her mind. Why did that man do all this? What was he after? Why didn't he kill her? Is it because he felt sorry for her? She sat upright on the filthy couch. It reeked of stale cigarettes and liquor, and her face was a bit too close to it for comfort. She clasped her hands together and crossed her legs, trying to get her story straight for the inexorable onslaught of questions C-Sec investigators would have for her.

"TEERA!" The little, brown turian jumped and looked to see who had just called her name.

It was Dexra. Her superior had come back to the club accompanied by her newly acquired beau who had a snubnosed Predator pistol drawn. Turns out he was an off duty C-Sec officer. Dexra sure knew how to pick her paramours. The grey turian pilot began tending to her friend, pelting her with questions as to what happened while the cop called for backup on his omni-tool. Then he began scanning every part of the room with his weapon drawn. He entered the corridor from which Teera had just departed. After two minutes time had passed, he returned. His face was filled with shock. Horror. Disgust. He had never seen anything like this.

"Teera...are you alright?! What happened? Atrix! What did you see back there?!" Dexra's questions were frenetic. Tense. She was scared, too. She knew something awful had just happened. She felt it. The dark grey turian cop just shook his head. Dexra shot him a puzzled look.

"Atrix! What did you see?!" She received no answer. She turned back to her friend.

"Teera. Please. What happened here?"

"I...I'm not sure…"

And it was the truth.


	2. Chapter Two: Mark of the Beast

**CHAPTER TWO: MARK OF THE BEAST**

Commander Amir Hussain walked casually through Alliance military hospital with a cavalier grin on his face, his kind, brown eyes glinting with a sincere sense of humor and joviality that was all too sparse amongst military men and women. The strikingly handsome, thirty two year old Arab ran a calloused hand over his well-trimmed van dyke style goatee and straightened his navy blue beret as he walked, catching more than a bit of female gaze with his roguish allure. Two women, a human Alliance flight doc and an Asari medical assistant, actually stopped to ogle his muscular form, smiling and snickering to one another in its regard. Amir had caught them staring red-handed but merely grinned and continued striding confidently towards his intended destination. He was certainly flattered, but he was taken. His asari wife had made an honest man of him, prying him from the follies of his manwhoring youth. Not many women had an ego to match his, but Aelia? She gave him a run for his money.

And he might need that context to deal with a certain asari now. He stopped in front of a patient room. The glass doors automatically parted, as he strode inside the sterile, brightly lit room. The sun was shining brightly from the window opposite of the room, illuminating the lovely, blue visage of Aria T'Loak. The famous/infamous ruler of Omega. A den of thieves. A den of iniquity. Aria was laying upright and motionless in her clean, white bed, wearing a thin hospital gown and her left hand bound in a thick, orange orthopedic cast. (Oh, how the mighty have fallen.) Her wrist had been pulverized. (The mark of the beast.) Amir dispensed with his typical irreverent demeanor and adopted a professional, clinical expression. His sunny disposition wouldn't get him far with this interrogation. Aria was expecting your run-of-mill, by-the-book Alliance MP, and that's what he was going to give her.

"Miss T'Loak?" The asari calmly turned her head to face her visitor.

"That's my name, yes."

"Catty. Anyway, my name i-"

"Commander Amir Hussain. I've been briefed." Bitch.

"Yes. I presume we can dispense with the formalities and discuss what happened to you?" The asari grimaced in pain and scowled at the young commander.

"What "happened to me?" Commander...I'll tell you what fucking happened to me. I lost everything I've ever worked for, was personally threatened, and had my wrist broken like a goddamn twig. All in one night."

"I understand that you're angry, bu-"

"Angry?!" "Angry" doesn't even begin to grace the depth of how fucking livid I am, commander." Amir rubbed his forehead in exasperation. He wasn't going to get much out of the deposed bandit queen until he appeased her ego enough to calm her down. He had an ego himself, but he wasn't an asshole about it. (Usually.)

"And I perfectly understand, and I sympathize. But time is of the essence. I need to know your story."

"And you'll get it."

"Start from the beginning, if you don't mind, ma'am." The asari laid back in her bed and exhaled deeply.

"Fine...well...three nights ago, I was rudely awakened from sleep in my personal quarters by the sound of someone clapping loudly inches away from my fucking face." Amir stood silently, allowing her time to collect herself to continue her story.

"And...naturally, I reacted as would anyone raised in my kind of enviroment. I reached for the pistol in my dresser. But it had already been taken by someone."

"The intruder had snuck into your room...and somehow, without waking you...grabbed your...uh..."

"Carnifex. Highly personalized. And customized. The fucking mongrel was holding it in his hands when I turned to face said mongrel. And yes. He was exceptionally quiet despite his size."

"Then what?"

"I got a look at the mongrel."

"Yes?"

"Biggest human I'd ever seen. Massive. Had yellowish brown hair. Beard. Wearing those silly-looking sunglasses you humans like to wear when it's bright outside. Only thing was...it was fairly dark in my room at the time. How he could see fucking anything is beyond me. Wearing one of those loose shirts you people wear when it's hot outside. Squatting by my bedside. Smoking a cigarette and staring at me...with...those fucking eyes of his. He had very fair skin. The color of a Presidum walkway on the Citadel. Powerfully built. Very powerfully built. The man was the size of a full-grown krogan." Any residual humor or positivity had evaporated from Amir's eyes completely after hearing Aria's description of the beast in question. It was the confirmation he needed. He knew of the individual in question. He had suspected before, but now he knew for certain. He and his task force were on the right trail. The Wendigo had to have been behind the Chora's Den hits.

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Yes, but I'll get to that in a bit. His behavior...was...bizarre to say the least."

"How so?"

"He was clearly a sand fiend. He was sweating heavily. Swaying side to side. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. He was high. Extraordinarily so." This was a new development. Might explain how Chora's Den went down so sloppy.

"And?"

"And...he...was the most..." The normally composed, stoic crime lord had adopted a look of reminiscent terror.

"Hmm?"

"...frightening person I've ever encountered."

"In what way?"

"For one...his eyes. Intensely blue. Like a pair of blue suns. That stare of his...fucking..."

"Yes?"

"I've seen some pictures of soldiers on the extranet. You know that "thousand yard stare" soldiers get? That disassociated look? Kind of like that. But...somehow worse. Horrible. Horrible. His face was a void. He was death. I knew it." Aria shuddered.

"And?"

"Listen, commander...I've had literally dozens of individuals stare menacingly at me throughout my career. Some were psychotic. Some were cold-blooded assassins. I've had countless attempts on my life. Hell...even that famous drell assassin tried his hand at taking me down. He failed, obviously, but the experience was less than comforting. I'm a ruthless woman, but I care about my city and its people. But...I care about my own life even more." Aria wasn't a philanthropist? What a shock this revelation was. Shocking. And revelatory. It was both. Wow.

"And this guy was different somehow?"

"Don't patronize me. You know this man. I can tell."

"I do, yes. Not personally, but I know of him."

"Then you should have an idea of what I experienced. Now imagine what you know about him already...but squatting in your bedchamber at 0200 in the morning, holding your only means of defending yourself against him in his hands. I have never...NEVER...had another person look at me like that in all my years. That stare of his...it rattled me to the core..." How could an assassin...no matter how powerful...terrify the galaxy's most ruthless crime lord?

"Didn't you try to fight back? What about your biotics?"

"What of them? I'm not stupid. I know when I'm beaten. The man was likely a biotic himself, considering how fast he must have been to pull off what he did...it wouldn't have mattered what I did. After what he managed to do to my bodyguards, I wasn't too keen on testing his fucking reflexes. My chances didn't look good. And...I'm not even done with the story."

"Fine. Please continue."

"This man only said two sentences to me, but I understood exactly what he was talking about. He said "You're done. No more." That's it."

"Really? Nothing else?

"Yes. That's it. He was obviously hired by my competition to scare me out of the sand trade."

"I have hard time believing someone like yourself could scare that easily."

"Once again...don't patronize me. This man killed...killed all my bodyguards. I had twenty six men running security in my home at the time. He killed each and every one of them. No one heard anything. No one saw anything. I reiterate...no one saw or heard fucking anything." Amir was skeptical of this. It was just too much to believe. He'd heard some of the hearsay surrounding the man in question...but...none of it could be substantiated.

"Don't take my incredulity the wrong way, Miss T'Loak, but this is extraordinarily hard to swallow. How is any of this even possible? I assume you have security cameras in your home? There must've been something in the security feed." Aria wrinkled her nose in disdain.

"Oh, please. I'm not asking you to take my word for it, commander. I'm only asking that you consider the evidence. Clearly, something out of the ordinary has occurred here. Whether you believe my story thus far or not, you should at least listen and consider it. Why even bother questioning me, if you're going to play the close-minded skeptic before even hearing everything I have to say? That's beyond stupid." She had a point. Aria wasn't one to lie about something like this. She had no reason. She was being temporarily held in Alliance custody...she'd turned herself in willingly. And she had admitted to losing her criminal empire. And she'd admitted to being scared shitless.

"I'm just concerned that you may be confused about some details. You've been through a lot. Fear can affect how we remember things. Just trying to make sur-"

"Stop wasting my fucking time, commander."

"I...I beg your pardon?" Well, she'd sure gotten salty all of a sudden.

"I said...stop wasting my time. Why would I lie about this? Why would I even bother, if I'm just wasting my time with nonsense? I came to you people because I have nowhere else to go. Whatever's left of the council on Thessia after the Reapers ground the city to dust wouldn't bother listening to me. They'd probably have me arrested and tried on the spot merely out of principle...my history of helping the galaxy fight the Reapers notwithstanding...funny how people forget the helping hands offered to them when those helping hands are a little bit dirty... I came to you people in good faith. I have information you need. You have the temporary asylum I need. This exchange is a simple transaction. Nothing more. I want this situation resolved, so I can get back to fucking work. I'm not here to spread tall tales or misinformation. I have people to do that for me. Stop trying to read between the lines of what I'm telling you. Stop trying to rationalize or normalize the situation to help your limited, mundane, little brain cope with hearing about things you don't understand. Your incredulity isn't my problem. I have my own problem to deal with here, and if you're not going to assist me with it...then this is where our dialogue ends. I'll find my own way of resolving my situation. Your second-guessing is tedious and unnecessary, and I'm not in the fucking mood to have some snotnosed whelp less than a quarter of my age drag out a simple story by interrupting my every sentence with idiotic questions whose answers are self-evident. I'm tired. I'm in pain. And I'm angry. So either listen to what I have to say and shut the fuck up, or get your officious, smarmy ass out of my fucking room so I can get some goddamn rest. My wrist is fucking killing me, and it's about time for my next dose of painkiller. My time is valuable, Hussain. Stop wasting it." Amir nodded. He'd gotten the message. She needed to feel as though she was in control somehow. Egotist. Control freak. He knew the type well.

"You're right. I understand. I'll dispense with the protocol and formalities, Miss T'Loak. Please continue, if you don't mind." Despite the woman's several hundred years of life experience, she had the same flaw as any egotist: She needed to be appeased. As long as he was willing to suck her proverbial dick, she'd play ball.

"Good. Where was I?"

"The security feed. The footage."

"Right. To answer your question from before...yes. I checked the footage. There was nothing. I interrogated the guards assigned outside my quarters. They didn't see or hear anything. And yet...twenty six tough, capable men...handpicked by yours truly...all had their necks broken or their throats torn out. With someone's bare hands." She was telling the truth.

"Allah protect us..."

"He'd be the only one capable of doing so. After what I've seen at least."

"Were any of your men assigned to protect you that night krogan?"

"Yes. At least a third were. Other two thirds were batarian and turian." Despite all the recent evidence alluding to the contrary, Amir was still having a hard time believing that a human could...well...not only overpower...but utterly decimate an eight hundred pound sapient reptile? Amir himself had killed one of the brutes in question two years ago in a bar fight. He'd barely survived. He'd managed to stab the big lizard in the throat with his omniblade after having been tossed around and smashed repeatedly into the bar counter like a rag doll. He'd had several broken bones, lacerations from broken beer bottles, and a substantial amount of internal bleeding afterwards...it had taken him almost two years to recover from those injuries.

"I don't know how that's possible. Even top of the line cybernetic implants wouldn't make somebody capable of doing...all that."

"True. I'm curious to know myself. I'd actually thought you and your little task force would know more about him than I would."

"Apparently, we know a lot less than we should. We've heard...hearsay about the suspect. But...we didn't believe some of the more outlandish claims made by the sources we interrogated."

"Well, now you have something new to consider about your suspect." He certainly did.

"You said this guy only said those two sentences to you? What else did he do?" Aria limply raised her cast-covered left wrist, wincing in agony as she did so.

"He did this. With two fingers." Amir shook his head in astonishment. The mark of the beast. An animal. A monster.

"Allah be merciful..."

"Then he cloaked himself with his omnitool and left. With my Carnifex in tow. That was a personal gift from a dear friend of mine. It was very expensive, too. I'd like to get it back, if it's at all possible." Crime lords and their priorities.

"Assuming we can catch up to this guy, we may have to use it as evidence."

"Pity."

"But ma'am...as dangerous as this guy sounds...I still don't understand why you of all people threw in the towel like you did. You faced down Cerberus itself to get Omega back...I just don't understand is all. Please don't take this the wrong way. I don't intend any offense."

"None taken. Commander...I'm a pragmatist above all else. That man has the potential to kill me at any point in time. At will. Even right now in this squalid, little room. And there's no clear means of stopping him. No matter how badly I'd love to watch him fucking choke on his own viscera, I've no desire to considerably shorten my own life span by attempting to make that happen. Cerberus was a solid enemy. They had limits. They had weaknesses that I exploited by observing them and striking when the time was just right. The Reapers were just a galactic natural disaster. All I had to do was stay out of their way long enough to survive and cast my lot in with Shepard and his cavalcade of misfits...and the Alliance by proxy. But...this man...he's just blackness. Death. There's no way to defend yourself against him. At least, not as far as I can tell. The drell was dangerous...but...he was still vulnerable. Fleshy. No matter how skilled he was, all it would take is a single slug in his scaly, green head to put him in the ground for good. But the man who attacked me...how do you fight...or...more accurately, "resist" someone like that? He's on top of you before you can so much as fart, let alone plan any sort of retaliation."

"I see. And then...you just packed up and headed to the nearest Alliance liaison?"

"Essentially, yes. After realizing the extent of what I was dealing with and putting a splint on my wrist, I told my people to lay low and keep an eye out for any signs of a hostile takeover and contacted the SSV Shanghai. She was patrolling nearby at the time. I figured that this mutual friend of ours would have at least a little bit of trouble getting through a naval vessel laden with thousands of military personnel...at least...enough to buy me some time to get away if the need arose." Amir curled his lip in disgust. Alpha or not, she was still a bitch.

"Cold...but...pertinent. And pragmatic."

"Lose the self-righteous indignation, commander. Your people wouldn't even give me the time of day were it not for them needing my information."

"Not true. We still appreciate your help against the Reapers."

"Self preservation. A necessity. Anyone in my position would have done the same."

"Fair enough." He was getting tired of this conversation. Having to suck Aria's blue clit every five seconds was surprisingly draining.

"That's all."

"Anything else at all? Any other details come to mind? No matter how insignificant?"

"No. That's everything. I once had a batarian terrorist aiming a pistol at my head moments before one of my men took his head off with a widow. I still remember what color armor he was wearing and how strongly he smelled of cheap liquor before he received a ballistic lobotomy. If there was anything else to tell, I would have told you." Amir made a mental note of all that he'd heard. No point in writing it all down until he'd left. Aria would never have agreed to the interview had he tried to record her story on his omnitool.

"I see. Well...Miss T'Loak, I appreciate your help." He turned to leave.

"Wait."

"Yes?"

"Do you plan on attempting to arrest or kill this man?" Amir wasn't sure anymore. He needed more information anyway.

"Depends."

"How so?"

"Judging by what you've just told me, any use of force would be pretty pointless. I take it that you want revenge for what he did to you?"

"Of course. But this man was a tool. I want the people who hired him. That's why I'm lying low here...I can't risk taking any action until I know exactly who I'm dealing with. That freak they hired could still kill me were I to show my hand."

"Smart."

"Any chance of letting me in on your investigation? As in...leaking a bit of classified information to my people in exchange for our cooperation?" Amir grinned.

"Possibly. But we can't risk it just yet." Even if they knew anything more, they wouldn't tell Aria's marry band of criminals a damn thing about it.

"Hmm. I guessed as much. Worth a try anyway."

"I won't take up any more of your time, Miss T'Loak. Try to get some rest." The lovely, blue woman reclined in her bed and stretched languidly. Despite her repugnantly smug demeanor and ego maniacal complex, she was still quite lovely to look upon.

"I plan to. And commander?"

"Yes?"

"Be careful of this man. I shouldn't have to tell you that this person isn't your typical terrorist or thug." Legitimate concern all of a sudden? Or something else?

"I will. And you don't." Amir took his leave, walking through the automated glass doors of Aria's room and out to the corridor beyond. He dropped his subservient, goofy know-nothing cop shtick. It was no longer needed. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of Aria's story. But he was sure of one thing.

He was scared. Dying wasn't what frightened him. It was the idea of what this monster seemed to be that frightened him. He sounded like a body without a soul. A bag of meat with no humanity. No pilot at the helm. It was a horrifying concept. The very anathema to all that was human endeavor. The death of one's humanity. Couple that with superhuman combat prowess, and you have a recipe for a casserole made out of nothing but fuck. The commander shuddered as he stood there pensively in the hallway. Something just didn't add up about the suspects behavior. His task force had been on this guy's trail for over six months now since he'd been handed the reigns to this investigation...the commander of the last task force had been stabbed to death by a vorcha he'd decided to, for some indiscernible reason, "personally interview"...while unarmed. In civilian attire. Alone. And on the streets of Omega. There were theories to this. Oh, were there ever. But whether or not the man had been doing something illicit or not, he had clearly made an absolute mess of his own investigation. After Amir got done putting together his crew of hand-picked marines recruited from within the Allliance MP Corps, he quickly began to realize how ineptly this case had been handled thus far.

In total, this investigation had been ongoing for close to ten years now. In all this time, the prior task force had only managed to confirm the identity of the suspect in question as a former N7 who had seen a decent amount of combat during his tour of duty...in other words...essentially the same as every other N7 who had ever graduated the Interplanetary Combatives Training program situated in the lovely, sunny as all fuck year round countryside outside Rio de Janeiro. After an unremarkable but otherwise respectable tour of duty, he and his entire squad had vanished one night while conducting an extreme conditions live fire exercise on Pluto. Just...poof. Gone. Then, apparently, the man had just...reappeared the very same day the Reapers had begun their assault on Toronto...seemingly out of nowhere. The man just popped in out of nowhere and started fighting alongside a group of Alliance marines trying to defend a shuttle launch pad long enough for the people inside the shuttles to escape. Only a single marine survived that fight to tell what he'd seen, but he'd already suffered a severe mental breakdown in the aftermath of it all...perfectly normal reaction to have in light of what he'd seen...but unfortunately, the nature of the witness's mental condition rendered the veracity of his report unreliable at best. This was the first reference to the man's activities and outlandish abilities and the only firsthand account anyone had heard...until Amir's interview with the woman in the room behind him. Beyond that...there was nothing. After that one sighting on the day the Reapers landed, there was no record of what had happened to the suspect afterwards, no intel on what had happened to his squad, what had given him these hypothetical "superman" abilities. Just...nothing.

All the prior task force had really done was pull the suspect's classified dossier and service record to identify him and made a few weak attempts to interview "witnesses" whose information was even less reliable than that of the traumatized marine. Amir had been dumbstruck. He had a fairly justified suspicion that there had been some corruption and foul play amongst the investigators...especially its commander. Had he intentionally tampered with the evidence? Hindered his own investigation? An Alliance cover-up? But then again, Amir had met many an inept idiot given responsibilities he/she couldn't possibly handle in his time in the Alliance, too. No way of knowing the truth of that just yet, but all they'd managed to accomplish was just figuring out who he was? The suspect's identity wasn't even what was in question. His identity was known but classified until the investigation had closed. What he need to know was where he was. What he was doing. Why he was doing it. Who he was doing it for. And how he managed to do it. The reports of the suspect's activities had been infuriatingly inconsistent if not outright conflicting. He was a hitman. A Cerberus assassin. An undercover Spectre. An android. A vigilante. A superhero. A serial killer. A gay elcor wearing a mansuit. He'd been spotted on Palaven. Thessia. The Lunar Training Grounds. In a restaurant in northern Michigan. The young commander had heard it all.

And...the only thing he'd been able to glean from all the bullshit was that the suspect had probably taken up work as a hitman or some other manner of criminal heavy who could be responsible for any number of hit jobs and victims in the criminal underworld of Citadel space and the Terminus Systems. There had been no evidence of any of his "hits" being done by him beyond hearsay. All clean. Quick. Efficient. No witnesses. Victims were all killed with pistol caliber slugs, stab wounds, or slit throats. No mauled bodies. No torn throats. No absurd displays of superhuman strength and speed. Nothing alluding to his being anything but a skilled assassin. Just...professional, clean hits. And T'Loak's extraordinary account was the only firsthand account of the suspect's activities beside the one given by that poor, shellshocked marine over ten years ago. And what she'd said had been pretty much in line with the marine's account...who had died of a drug overdose months after giving it. A dead end. (That was in poor taste.) It was all a lot to take in...even if he could swallow the fact that the guy could actually do what T'Loak and the marine had said he could, there were still some other inconsistencies to consider. The man's last two jobs had been anything but professional. It didn't make sense.

"Why, though? Why's he getting so sloppy?" Was it really the sand? Was it a recently acquired habit? Why start sand blasting now? Or was his lifestyle finally getting to him? Mental breakdown? He already sounded like he'd bought a ticket for the one way shuttle to Crazy Town. No. Didn't add up.

There had only been conjecture that the hitman had been involved when some Blue Suns merc was found dead in his own bunk with a slit throat...or that some up and coming drug lord got his skull ventilated from a sniper shot no heard or saw. But the most recent two hits inside Chora's Den were now almost certainly the work of the same man. T'Loak's story pretty much confirmed it. The only possible witness to what had happened that night in the club wasn't talking. A young turian navy pilot. She'd denied seeing anything at all despite the circumstances surrounding how she'd been found in the club. She'd been the only patron left inside after the suspect had somehow hacked the fire suppression system. She claimed to have almost suffocated in the all the gas spraying around her. Somehow. Despite all the other patrons having gotten out of the club with no trouble at all.

And her superior officer claimed that she'd been laying in a fetal position on that couch when she'd found her...she'd been shaking all over. She'd been crying. Scared. This girl was a veteran. Combat experience. She'd definitely seen something. Traumatized, maybe? Worried about a reprisal from the galaxy's favorite bogeyman? Well, that actually made sense considering Aria's recent concession. Should he lean on her a bit more to see if she'd talk? Or was she the type to clam up even more? Could he appeal to her command? No. No point. She wasn't talking. Even if she was, all she'd know would be along the same lines as what Aria had just told him. And all the other patrons in the bar somehow barely remembered anything that night also...how very interesting. Of course, it was Chora's Den. The dead bouncer and club owner both had shady dealings in the past. C-Sec had warrants on half that bars clientele. Strippers included. Everyone knew to keep their traps shut in that place. There weren't any security cameras installed either. Nothing. Didn't matter. He knew The Wendigo had been there that night anyway. Trying to lean on whoever hired the guy to go after Aria would be pointless. That woman had more enemies than a batarian slave trader. Another dead end.

He only had one option. He needed to get in contact with an old friend. Amir needed to call in that favor he was owed.


	3. Chapter Three: Pariah

**CHAPTER THREE: PARIAH**

Teera paused her game on her omnitool screen and stretched back languidly on her rack, relishing her return to her own quarters on her own ship. About fucking time. Her officer's accommodations blew C-Sec's out of the water by comparison. She frowned...didn't it run somewhat counter to the whole turian ideal of meritocracy and utilitarian simplicity to house the lower enlisted in those dreadfully claustrophobic coffin racks in the barracks down below her? She felt...spoiled. Conceited. She didn't like the feeling. Turian officers were exclusively selected from enlisted candidates that had to prove their worth on the battlefield and off. However...turian naval pilots, like herself, were selected directly from a pool of fresh-faced youngsters putting in their mandatory first term of service and were chosen according to how well they perform on a series of military aptitude tests. If they managed to score high enough, then they got shipped off to a naval flight academy to be tested for piloting aptitude on a series of shitty, low tech flight sims that were positively ancient by current standards without any briefing or even a simple introduction to a fighter cockpit's controls to see if they had any natural aptitude or intuition for flying. She hated those old things. She'd had to train on those obsolescent pieces of shit for three months before her training cycle even got to sit in an actual cockpit.

Teera snorted. Even simple omnitool mobile games had better graphics than those outdated old sims. She looked down at her omnitool display and minimized her game to check the time...it was 2231. The date was the 11th of Quartus...she smiled. It was springtime on Palaven. She absentmindedly began swiveling and shaking the pause screen of her game erratically until the image achieved a sort of motion blur...all the colors blended together. Except for the giant fucking pause prompt aptly stamped with the turian word, PAULNI, in a massive, bold military-style font that was commonly used when writing in the Hierarchy Standard alphabet. Of course, her brain immediately translated the word into English as it always did.

"Hehehe...PAUUUUUSSSE!" She broke into a seemingly endless fit of giggles over what was, at the very most, a mildly amusing peculiarity of the game developer's font choice. She decided that she was an idiot. It took her several moments to calm down. She had to stay quiet. If she woke the new O3 down the hall in the male officer dorm who was being reassigned to her squadron, the guy would have it in for her for the rest of her service. First impressions were everything after all.

She idly prodded her omnitool screen, watching the frozen image distort where she poked her talon through it. It was a good thing Teera had been an obsessed gamer since she'd gotten her first flight sim from her mother when she was six years old. Best decision she had ever made. And it had just been a random impulse purchase at her colony's local Tesco's...after she'd thrown a monstrous fit in the middle of the electronics aisle, of course. But she'd been hooked on flying ever since. It was no wonder she was good at her job. She'd been training for it since she was little without even knowing it. Ironically, those "non-educational" games had been far better at training her for the cockpit than any of the mil flight sims she'd been trained/tortured on back at the academy. But no matter how antiquated the flight sims were, they were still a decent measure of a naval cadet's piloting skills.

And Teera was the best. Objectively. Not merely the best out of all the candidates in her training cycle...the best pilot in the entire Turian Hierarchy. She'd gained the highest flight aptitude score possible during every scored simulation, academic assessment, and practical assessment. She'd taken scores of optional training programs to become qualified to fly most any vessel, airship, or shuttle at the Turian Hierarchy's disposal...at the mere age of twenty four. She was at the top of every list that even remotely involved measuring one's flying skills. Not only that, she'd proven herself to be the real deal flying with her squadron in actual combat, personally gunning down fourteen batarian slavers piloting stolen turian Praxis fighters in a single battle two years ago. But most notably, she got one very famous kill during that battle: A very well armed...very heavily armored and shielded with a kinetic barrier...famous vessel. More specifically, a turian cruiser that had been appropriated by those same slavers. Or were they pirates? (Both, maybe?)

For mere criminals, the slavers had been exceptionally disciplined and trained...apparently that specific slave ring was comprised entirely of former batarian military. Naval experts with years of flight experience and heavily armed marines trained extensively in ship boarding and close quarters combat. What they did next was so egregious and awful that the Turian Hierarchy declared a period of mourning for all its colonies in the aftermath of the tragedy that lasted for over a week, and it later made that same date an official memorial holiday. She and her squadron had all received commendations as a result of that awful day. She banished the thought in fear it would remind her of what had happened recently. (No.)

She turned back to her game. It was one of her all time favorites. A highly realistic starship sim by the name of Fleet Commander 3. The third and best installment of the series. She'd already sunk over three hundred hours into the game since its release over five months ago and had all the highest tier upgrades unlocked for all ship classes. She was at the top of the leaderboards and a bit of a celebrity amongst the game's tight-knit community of players.

Her gamer handle, Chavgirl36, evoked quite a reaction from any player who happened to see it, ranging from disdain to admiration. (It's lonely at the top, it is.) Teera put the finishing touches on her frigate's propulsion system from the game's upgrade and construction screen and deftly piloted the massive vessel out of its virtual hangar and into the blackness of space. She frowned. The game's graphical representation of space looked magnificent on a proper terminal screen, but right now? Garbage. She didn't like the decrease in quality and resolution from having to play her beloved flight sim on a lowly omnitool screen, but it was better than not playing at all. The only game she played that didn't look like shit on an omnitool screen was her second favorite game of all time, Hierarchy Warriors 2. It was the sequel to the popular RPG set in the Turian Medieval Period. It was dated enough to run smoothly on even a cut rate omnitool with a toaster for a processor.

"Let's go, boys." Her virtual crew obeyed. Her sleek, high-tech hierarchy frigate slipped noiselessly through the ebon expanse of void. Teera expertly switched from third person view to cockpit view to get a better spatial awareness as she approached a cluster of asteroids. She hated fucking asteroids. They were the number one hazard in the game, and other players often used them as cover to stage ambushes. And speak of the devil...she was being attacked.

"Oh, you sneaky cunt." It was another player piloting a cloaked batarian slaver ship. The guy had been hiding behind a rather large asteroid, waiting to ambush unsuspecting players to gank their gear. Unfortunately for him, Teera was more than prepared for such amateurish tactics.

"Oh, you're dead, bruv. Fookin' done in." She began taunting the other player in proximity chat as her frigate's auto turrets engaged the low tier enemy vessel, pelting the poor ship with a rapid fire assault of close range slugs.

The poorly shielded and armored ship was screwed. The captain had made a fatal mistake with his poorly conceived ambush. He'd tried to "nose" Teera's proud, turian frigate. It was a common tactic used by amateurs where a player would ambush another in such close proximity that the defending vessel's long range armaments would be rendered useless. The attacker would then attempt to strafe the defending ship at a very close range to prevent it from turning to put the attacking ship in its gun sights. It was a clever tactic...for a beginner. Most experienced players were well-aware of this amateur method of assault. Teera was no exception. It was why she'd installed two tight swiveling auto turrets on her frigate. If you wanted to beat her, you would have to fight fair. She grinned. This fight was in the bag.

"You're fookin' done, mate. You thought that would actually work? Delusional." Before long, the batarian slaver ship was reduced to a slug-riddled, floating pile of rubble, drifting aimlessly through space as Teera's magnificent frigate triumphantly began sifting through its meager salvage.

"You got nothin', mate. No good gear. Nothin' worth pickin' up. Waste of time." Teera's childish beratement had finally struck a chord with the other equivocally childish player.

"Shut your fookin' whore mouth, you Brummie slag." She laughed at the accusation of being a "Brummie." This kid sounded like a teenaged boy. Southern English accent. He sounded pretty salty.

"That was a shithouse fight, mate. Why'd you even bother?"

"You fookin' cheated, ya' ugly cunt! Auto turrets!"

"You tried nosing me, gimp boy."

"Auto turrets aren't fair! Lower level players can't get those!" Teera snorted in laughter. This kid had no idea how slender she was. Or how _turian_ she was. A bird who actually managed to get fat was akin to an elcor learning to breakdance. This was sure to be an enlightening conversation. And very, _very_ English. She could practically _taste_ the custard cremes and black tea.

"Not my fault you suck arse, little boy. You try nosing me, you get put down. With auto turrets. How'm I to defend myself otherwise?"

"Not fair to players what 'aven't been playin' as long! Ya' fookin' loser. Ya' got no life, slag." No life. A common insult used by sore losers.

"Maybe. A right sad thing, innit? But it doesn't change the fact that I'm rummagin' through your wreckage right now, luv. Ooh...fuel cells. I'll be taking those." The boy began to truly lose his shit.

"Get fucked! Fookin' bitch!" What transpired next made Teera's night. The boy's mother had overheard her son's angry ranting and decided to intervene.

"Thomas?! It's a school night! What are you doing up this late and using that kind of language!?"

"Not now, mum! I'm playin' me game!"

"Who're you talking to?"

"Nobody! Just another player."

"Hehehe...hello, ma'am. Just having a lovely conversation with your well-behaved son." Teera began rolling with laughter. She'd kind of started it all...but...well. Whatever.

"I told you these violent games would rot your mind! That's enough! Off to bed with you! Go on! Go."

"C'mon, mum, not now, I'm tryi-" The boy's audio cut out abruptly as his mother shut off his game. It took Teera a solid minute to recover from her laughing fit. She definitely needed to grow up.

She minimized her game screen and looked at the time...it was getting late. She had formation at 0600 with the rest of her squadron. She sighed, saved her game, and turned it off. She shut off her omnitool and laid back in her rack, reveling in the soft caress of its bedsheets. She'd been putting off thinking about what had transpired three nights ago in Chora's Den. She'd been keeping herself busy to forget the horror of it all. But it was slowly pushing itself to the fore of her subconscious, no matter how much she wanted to ignore it.

"That man...who was he? What was he?" Apt questions, both.

She exiled the dark thought from her mind and took off her boots. She then slid out of her trousers, revealing her lacy, pink Hello Kitty panties and shapely, tawny-colored legs. Her choice of underwear was certainly atypical of most turians. She grinned. She removed her jacket to reveal her beloved Krogi the Whelp, TM t shirt, depicting an adorable baby krogan rolling about on his back, his chubby, little face lit up with an effervescent smile. Not the standard uniform undershirt. In fact, she would certainly get a talking to were one of her fellow birds to catch her wearing it. But they would almost certainly never know. The turian aversion to so much as revealing one's undergarments to another had some advantages at least. Teera yawned mightily, her jaw opening as wide as a snake's, exposing her countless, sharp fangs. The long rows of black razors glittered in the dim light of the young turian's quarters. She slid under her covers and laid her little, brown head down on her fluffy, hypoallergenic pillow and tried to drift off to sleep. But...she couldn't.

"Fookin' hell. That guy..." The unwanted train of thought had reaffirmed itself in her mind. She could no longer ignore its ebon call.

She had so many questions. She'd been incensed at Dexra that night for leaving her alone in the club to run off into a dark alley for a quickie with her new boyfriend. But that wasn't what was bothering her now. That man...his eyes. That stare. She'd never felt so afraid in her life. She was getting chilled all over just thinking about it, despite the muggy warmth of quarters that emulated Palaven's typical climate. Humans would likely be horribly uncomfortable on a turian vessel. Their metabolisms were higher on average than a turian's. But salarians? They would positively melt on a turian ship. She giggled at the mental image of a salarian literally melting.

"Hehehe...poor cunt. Someone point a fan on that guy." She couldn't excise the horrible thoughts, no matter how much she attempted to deflect their dark grasp on her brain.

He was most assuredly a murderer. But he'd saved her. Granted...he'd saved her from a situation that he'd likely created himself...but he'd saved her nonetheless. Why? Despite her terror, she'd found him...strangely alluring. Powerful. Primal. Savage. Sexy. She wasn't sure why. He was a monster. But he also wasn't. But that gaze of his...she'd never seen anyone in her entire life look at her like that. She shivered. His eyes had been as two azure voids, dumping a lifetime of madness and despair into her unwilling life. She didn't even know who he was, but he'd swallowed her thoughts completely. She had to know who he was. She groaned. She wasn't going to be able to sleep like this. She realized that she'd been idly fondling herself from under her covers, her talons carefully massaging her privates for no particular reason. Her right hand was gently sliding in and out of her panties as she played with herself. She sheathed the talon on her forefinger and slowly slid it into herself. She gasped. She was wet.

"The fook's wrong with me?" Something was definitely fucking wrong with her. She reluctantly removed her hand from her underwear.

The man had been so...dark. Sexy. Despite his crimes...despite his terrifying demeanor and appearance, he was gorgeous. Perfectly masculine. She imagined the sultry, pink glow of a club. The pounding bass. That blonde giant. His incredible physique. She imagined him. His cock. Cumming deep inside her. His thick, white seed dripping out of her used hole after he withdrew. He would use her. Fuck her like an animal. Overpower her. Control her. Slam her up against a wall and fuck her senseless. She'd have no chance to resist. She'd just have to learn to enjoy it. Weak. Defiled. A plaything. (Stop.)

"Disgusting. Go to sleep."

A wave of shame washed over her. She had almost pleasured herself to the visage of a monster. His long, wheat-colored locks hanging limply over his insane, blue eyes. His beard...ragged. Would it tickle her to be kissed by a bearded man? Humans were so strange. They were so similar to turians in so many ways...but they always broke whatever mold into which the galaxy attempted to put them. She'd been born into human culture, but she'd always had the unique stance of both objectivity and familiarity due to her heritage. She liked to analyze their behavior, culture, and anatomy. _Especially_ their anatomy. (Stop. Stop being disgusting for one second.) She held no illusions of actually _being_ an ape herself, but she had an insider's perspective. She sometimes felt like a foreigner amonst her own people due to this. But...she couldn't ruminate over this for much longer.

She had squadron formation on the quarterdeck in the morning. Their new squadron leader was taking charge of her small team of twelve young turian officers. She'd heard he was...okay. First impressions were everything, though, and showing up sleep deprived due to her having been up all night playing games and playing with herself. (No. Stop.) It certainly wasn't very officerial. And it sure as hell wasn't very _turian._ She sighed deeply and tried to relax. She eventually drifted off...but hers was not a restful sleep.

She was in a nightmare. The massive blonde brute had broken into her quarters and held her down to her own bed. He choked her senseless while he raped her and broke her fragile neck when he was done with her.

She woke up covered in a light sheen of sweat just thirty minutes before her alarm had gone off. She was shivering with terror. Horror. She began to weep.

* * *

"Good morning, squadron. I'm Lieutenant-Commander Marnus Braxo, your new squadron leader." The sterile, light blue accented quarterdeck was positively sparkling with cleanliness due to Teera's squadron having cleaned it for over a week in preparation of their new O3's arrival. The squadron was standing in two perfectly aligned and spaced rows of six with the four O2's standing on corners of the formation with their subordinate three O1's next to them. All at parade rest, their hands behind their backs, fingers interlocking, feet shoulder width apart. Everything was perfect. They were ready to impress this guy.

"I've heard a hell of a lot about you all, and I have to say...I'm _very_ impressed." (We're in the clear.) Teera resisted the urge to grin. But the new O3 didn't. His dark blue visage was lit up with a pleased..."grin?" No. "Smirk?" She couldn't tell. His demeanor was very relaxed by turian standards. Especially when it came to addressing a new unit after a change of duty stations.

"From what I can tell...you guys are the best squadron in the air group. Maybe even the carrier group. No disciplinary actions. Everyone up to speed on their quals and training. Outstanding service records. I like that. Makes my job easier." Teera was now a bit suspicious...this was the sort of introduction that people gave when they were trying to look like "one of the little guys." It was the classic _"Now I'm not here to reinvent the wheel"_ speech...right before they started fucking everything up. Humans used the term, too. Some things were universal.

"You've all been doing a stand-up job thus far. And I fully commend that. But...there are some things I want to change. Listen...I'm not here to reinvent the wheel..." (You fookin' predictable cunt.) Teera's entire squadron internally groaned.

"But...I want you all to know that there's more to being a great pilot than just flying and keeping your beaks clean. I came from an infantry background before I qualled for the academy, and I've seen a lot of pilots getting grounded in combat." (Here we go...)

"A turian is a soldier first and foremost. Flying is your primary job, yes. But you need to be ready to fight on the ground if the time comes. From what I've seen of your PT scores...you're all just...average. Acceptable but not great. I want the very best out of you guys." Teera quietly moaned. Dexra covertly elbowed her to shut her up. She already knew what was coming next...another pilot survival course. Her squadron had already done this exercise _twice_.

"I need you guys in better shape. I want you guys trained on not just Phaeston marksmanship, but also with the Raptor, Tempest, Scimitar, whatever. You never know what weapon you'll end up using when you're grounded. I want you all better acquainted with small group infantry tactics. You need to be well-rounded to survive out there. I was grounded myself during the Reaper Wars...and let me tell you...it doesn't matter how well you can fly. If you see enough combat, you're getting shot down. It's inevitable. My experience as a grunt before becoming a pilot saved my life and the life of those next to me." He had a decent point, but the Reaper Wars were over. You didn't need to know all this shit anymore. Basic skills were all that was necessary, and Teera's squadron had already been familiarized with most weapons used by turian infantry.

"First thing I wanna' do is have us all go through another pilot survival course. You need to learn to survive the crash. Regroup. Form a squad. Evade or engage the enemy. Condition yourselves to move in heavy armor and keep an eye on your shields. And I want to get those PT scores up. I want the best pilots in the carrier group to also be the best soldiers in the carrier group. You all get me?" The squadron uniformly affirmed.

"YES, SIR!" Teera had certainly called it. But she wished she hadn't. She utterly _loathed_ these exercise.

"Good. Let's get to it then. Why waste time? I want you all to get your gear and fighters prepped in thirty. Like you would with any standard combat run or routine patrol. We're launching as soon as you're ready. But first lemme' get acquainted with each of you." She hated this part, too. She'd had to go through this routine a year ago when their current wing commander had been assigned to their unit. Her service record and unique background were always brought up. And not necessarily in a _positive_ way.

"Starting with...you. O2 in back." He was pointing at Dexra. Teera was next. She wouldn't even have time to prepare her introduction.

"Yes, sir. Flight Lieutenant First Class Dexra Ramanus. Six years as a pilot...graduated uh...six years ago...and...I...uh..." Teera cringed with sympathy at her friend's discomfort.

"Where are you from pilot?"

"Uh...well, I'm from Palaven, sir." Dexra was drawing a blank. Teera knew she wasn't likely to fair much better herself.

"Yeah. So am I. But where in?"

"Um...small town. Brandalusk. It was a uh..."

"Relax, pilot. I'm not going to bite you. Just trying to get to know you." The new squadron leader seemed decent enough, but saying the wrong thing and making a bad impression on a new superior usually led to a career of persecution. That guy would always be watching you, waiting for you to fuck up even the most trivial of things.

"Right, sir. It was a small industrial town. Manufactured fighter frames and wings. That's what got me interested in being a pilot. So...I...uh...entered the academy when it was time for my enlistment. Uh...not really much else to tell, sir. Just your average pilot. Sorry. Did you want to hear about my service record?"

"No. Already read it. Exemplary. You can relax. You're off the hook. Hope I don't have a shy bunch of pilots on my hands here. You next. O1 next to Ramanus. What's your _story_?" Teera breathed deeply and tried to relax and made her best attempt to suppress her accent. Maybe he wouldn't notice her it...or her family surname.

"Err...yessir...Flight Lieutenant Second Class Teera Vakarian. I'm a-"

"Woah. Any relation to Garrus Vakarian?" No such luck. "Vakarian" was a common enough surname for people to gloss over, but when she had to introduce herself...well...

"Y-yes, sir. He's my father."

"Holy hell! You're the daughter of the most venerated turian in the entire Hierarchy?! You're not flipping my jowels are you? You look nothing like him."

"Well, I took after me mum, sir." She winced. She'd been speaking in _English_. And using English vernacular. Luckily, the starstruck O3 didn't seem to notice that his translator had just picked up on it.

"Spirits...what are the odds? Your service record made no mention of his. I'd like to meet him some time and shake his hand if it's possible." This was the second prong of the two-tined fork of fuckery that was her personal history.

As extraordinarily proud as Teera was of her father, such pride and association came with inexorable scrutiny. She was always in the spotlight, being judged by the venerable deeds of her father. This never led to preferential treatment, but rather it led to the opposite. Her superiors often expected more of her than her fellow pilots. It likely hadn't helped matters that her father had become rather overprotective as he'd gotten older. One time, he'd even shown up to the academy before she'd graduated during training to make sure the instructors weren't "mistreating" her. It'd been one of the single, most embarrassing moments of her life. As overjoyed as she'd been to see her dad, the fallout resultant had made the rest of her training a living hell. Everyone in her squad bay resented her, and her instructors doubled down on her. She knew it wasn't her dad's fault. He'd lost so many friends and family throughout his life. And after he'd found out that his closest friend, the extremely famous N7, Commander John Shepard, had died during an anti-piracy op in the Terminus System five years ago, her father had become even _more_ protective of his friends and family. Claustrophobically so. He and her mother often got into arguments over it that scared Teera. The two of them had just gotten back together. She didn't want them to split up again.

"Well, sir, he's retired now. Living with me mum on a little colony in the middle of nowhere."

"Where?"

"Uh...same town I was born in. Kingston upon Hull. Err..."New Hull" for short. On Planet Tammuz." Crap. Now she was in for it.

"Huh...strange name. Doesn't sound turian at all." (No shit.)

"Uh...somethin' wrong, sir?"

"Yeah. ...wait...my translator is...hmm." Shit. She'd been speaking in English again.

"Sir?"

"What language were you just speaking?" Teera groaned.

"Uh...English, sir. Sorry force of habit."

"As in..."Alliance English?"

"Yes, sir. New Hull was a human colony. All me friends were humans. Only turians I'd ever met until I hit the academy were me mum and dad. Humans from a farming company on a Earth colonized it, but they figured out the soil could grow dextro crops, too. Me mum was sent there to help oversee things while dad was aboard the Normandy."

"Well, I'll be damned. Quite a story you've got there. And that accent of yours is going to take some getting used to. Your turian is a bit hard to pick up with it, but at least we can use you as a translator if the need arises. But enough about that. I also hear you're the top-rated pilot in the Hierarchy. That's quite the title."

"Uh...yes, sir." Should she brag to show confidence? Downplay it to seem humble?

"You're quite the individual, Vakarian. But just so you know, I won't be treating you any differently than the rest of your squadron. No special treatment and no mistreatment. Just so we're clear." Teera couldn't help but smile.

"I understand, sir."

"Good. Alright...next. You. O1 next to Vakarian. Tell me about yourself." The tall, tannish colored turian man next to her began to awkwardly introduce himself. Teera breathed a sigh of pure relief.

This hadn't been so bad after all. Aside from the upcoming exercise, the new O3 seemed alright. He wouldn't have been assigned to her squadron had he not been qualified after all. Maybe she and her unit were going to get a fair shake here.

Maybe she wasn't going to be seen as a pariah after all.


	4. Chapter Four: The Tupari Gambit

**CHAPTER FOUR: THE TUPARI GAMBIT**

Amir couldn't believe he was doing this. He was cursing every one and thing known to human endeavor as he strode down one of Omega's many murky, poorly lit avenues containing all manner of suffering and depravity. It certainly didn't help how he was dressed. He was sporting a finely tailored dark gray evening suit with pearl cufflinks. His feet were clad in spotless, black Italian leather dress shoes...well...they _were_ spotless. About...two or three dank puddles ago. He was fully expecting to be mugged at any point. He'd chosen his fine attire to project a sort of "fish out of water" look to deflect suspicion. Your average, rich douche canoe slumming for drugs, hookers, and/or looking to hire thugs for any number of illicit jobs as per the norm on Omega. Of course, it didn't help matters that he'd just passed a vorcha passed out on the ground from his likely habitual afternoon heroin nod. Maybe the rest of the locals would be too blasted out of their minds to accost him. Fortunately, that was the _least_ of his concerns. But also and unfortunately, that was the _least_ of his concerns.

"Everything is about perspective. Team Two...I'm nearing the rendezvous point. Any visual on the suspect yet?" He heard the staticky chatter of his surveillance team as they responded through the commander's covert ear piece. Something was interfering with their channel. Scrambler? Possibly.

"...y...-no, sir. None yet. No sighting of suspect entering the alleyway." Amir was perturbed by this. Was this a trap? A setup? He'd gone to extreme lengths to set up this "meeting." He would owe the contact who arranged it a hell of a favor in return. Best case scenario...this was a no-show. Worst case...

"...s...Commander...we have a group of foot mobiles inbound to your area. D...do...read, over?" Overwatch had spotted some friendly locals coming his way. Great news.

"Copy that, Team Three. What are we looking at here?"

"...look-...like...twenty or so...b-arians wearing street clothes. C-ld be...gang members l-ing for so-..." This interference was getting to be a problem.

"Team Three? Do you read me?" No answer.

"Shit." He had no choice but to continue to his rendevous point and hope to evade the rowdies coming down the alleyway behind him. He tried getting his QRF team on the horn.

"Team One, do you read me, over?" No answer.

"This is turning out to be a lovely operation." Well...he'd have to rely on his own skills at the moment. If need be, he could always hide out and double back to get within support range of his teams. He really hoped this wasn't a trap.

He reached the end of the alleyway, the path beyond was blocked by an antiquated airlock door that more covered in rust than a Tuchankan tomkah. He activated it and stepped through it. He was in an arcade of sorts...all run down. Barely anyone about. Only a handful of the shops were open. He continued onward to his destination. He passed by an elcor who tried hawking his junk wares to him. He politiely declined and entered the relatively well lit alleyway behind the big alien's shop. It was a dead end. A circular alcove filled with a series of vending machines. Most notably was the large Tupari machine...because leaning lackadaisacally against it was the man he'd been trying to find for months.

The Wendigo was here. The terror of the underworld. A killer of men. A monster.

He looked exactly as everyone had said he did. He was massive. Huge. Epicly muscled. Near shoulder length blonde hair swept behind his head. Bearded. Wearing a red Hawaiian-style shirt with coyote tan tactical pants bloused over a tall pair of black combat boots. Sporting his signature circular sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. The big man waved him over. Commander Hussain nervously approached him. After what he'd gleaned from his contact's appraisal of the galaxy's most feared and illusive hitman, he had every right to be nervous.

"You're...The Wendigo, I presume?"

"Yep. People call me lots of things, man. Boogeyman. Fuckfart. That one big, blonde motherfucker. Buttplug enthusiast. You name it. Don't matter none. Actual name's "William Halvorsen." But I figure you already knew that, Commander Hussain." Shit.

"You know who I am?" Shit. Shit. Shit. Double shit.

"Dude. Seriously? How the fuck would I _not_ know the man who took over the Alliance task force tryna' find me? I know you ain't no cop. I know you're an N7. And an undeclared _Spectre_." The big man began to chuckle. His affectation of speech was distinctly Southern...Southeastern American to be precise. He'd been born in Tennessee to a couple of Norwegian immigrants. Of course, such a regional/national distinction was no longer relevant. But how did the big man acquire such classified...you know what? It no longer mattered. Nothing could surprise him anymore.

"Okay...so you know who I am. But do you know why I arranged this meeting?"

"Possibly. Maybe you wanna' talk. Get the skinny on what I been doin'. Or maybe you wanna' try to apprehend me. I imagine those snipers ya' positioned outside the bazaar ain't here to cap the local dope fiends. 'Fraid y'all ain't got enough people to handle the magnitude of that endeavor, friend."

"What're you talking about?" It was a weak ploy, calling his bluff, but he had to make sure.

"Please. That one turian sharpshooter up the street? Cloaked. Saw his outline shimmering against the lights behind him. That's why I don't use cloaking. I use camoflauge. Hide in the dark. Can't see my outline that way. And them N7's in plainclothes you got posted outside the cafe? Saw them motherfuckers on my way in. And I imagine you got a surveillance team set up somewhere. All very textbook." (Well... _shit.)_

"They're here for my safety. You're a dangerous man. And this is a dangerous neighborhood." It was actually the truth. Amir hadn't been sure how this meeting would go down from the get-go. Usually, he was more calculating and decisive...but this was a rather unusual operation. That involved a rather extraordinary _suspect._ He hadn't even been certain that The Wendigo would show, let alone certain as to how he should handle him if they met. For now...Amir would just have to feel things out.

"Indeed it is, friend."

"So...jig is up. I was tasked with bringing you in, yes. But some of the things I've heard about you don't add up. I want some answers." The big man raised a single eyebrow and took another long drag of cigarette.

"Oh?"

"You've already figured out that this wasn't your standard rendevouz for a job. You knew that from the start. Why still meet with me?"

"'Cause I figured that maybe you wasn't a corrupt dumbfuck like your predecessor. Plus, yer an N7 like me. And you got Spectre status. Maybe you'd be more...open-minded about things. Figured I'd give you a chance to hear reason. Hear my side of the story." Maybe this wasn't going to turn into a blood bath after all. Maybe things weren't actually as they had seemed as Amir had suspected. Suddenly, the Tupari vending machine chimed in with its signature tongue-in-cheek advertising.

"Tupari! It's now made with 10% actual juice! No, _really_!" The big man chuckled at the machine's announcement.

"Man...that don't never get old for some reason..." This guy's attitude wasn't anything like he'd heard it was. He was...jovial. Not like the wide-eyed psychopath from Aria's account.

"Okay...I'll keep my teams back for now. I just want to hear your side of things."

"Welp...welly welp McWelperson...hmm...probably ain't got enough time for that just now, actually." Amir took a step back. Was this about to get violent after all?

"What do you mean?"

"You seen them batarian boys what you thought was followin' you back there?" Why even ask? How could he _forget_? And how did this massive wall of meat seem to know _everything_?

"Yes. Gang members?"

"Tupari! Commander Shepard drank it while fighting the Reapers! And then he stopped drinking it one day...AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO _HIM_!"

"Damn. Their advertising's gettin' pretty dark lately. Anyway...well...not exactly. Those guys are more like...batarian separatists. "Terrorists" as they're more commonly known. They been chasin' _my_ big ass fer months. Not _you_. Still no idea why, but I got a handful o' guesses. I figured I'd lure 'em into a trap a' sorts." Violence did indeed seem inevitable.

"Did...did you just bring me here to have those assholes deal with me so you wouldn't have to get your hands dirty?!"

"Tupari! Now with 30% more reconstituted concentrated tupo berry juice concentrate! But...it's still 100% juice if you're bad at math! And who _isn't?!_ AM I RIGHT?!" At that moment, a salarian wearing work clothes entered the alcove and headed towards the two men.

"Shh. Relax. We got a guest." The salarian headed over to the Tupari vending machine to purchase a drink.

"Hey, guys. Afternoon." The two humans replied in unison.

"Hey." The salarian paid for his drink with his omnitool and grabbed the signature purple bottle of overly sweetened juice cocktail out of the vending slot. He popped the top and took a swig.

"Tupari! It's the taste that salarians love!" The salarian snorted.

"Ha. Yeah...we sure _do_! You guys have a good one." The two men replied in unison again.

"You, too." The salarian sauntered away out of earshot. The two humans continued their dialogue.

"To answer your question: _No_. I brought you here to show you what I'm dealin' with, man. If you see for yourself, then you got a better understandin' of what I've been doin' all these years. You're no good to me dead." Then why have him brought into a firefight? Without the support of his team? In an arcade with only one way in or out? _Was_ there another way out?

"I need to try calling my teams again!" Amir frantically tried raising his support teams on his comms. No dice.

"Don't bother. This Tupari machine's fitted with a scrambler, man. Had it brought in myself. Custom made an' everythin'. An' the airlock is gonna' be locked down in a minute anyway. By the time your team gets in here, ain't gon' be nobody left to shoot, son." What? Tupari made custom vending machines now? And more importantly _what_ was about to be closed down?

"So all that interference we had on our comms...that _was_ you. Fucking hell. Okay...okay...so...how do you think we're going to get out of this mess then?" The big man began futzing with his omnitool. Suddenly...an alarm klaxon began to sound. Red, swirling lights began flashing outside the vending machine alcove.

"The fuck are you doing?!"

"Relax. Gettin' the civilians outta' here." An alert began sounding througout the bazaar.

"ALERT! ALERT! AN AIR LEAK HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THIS SECTOR! ALL WITHIN THE AFFECTED AREA ARE TO EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! HERMETICALLY SEALING BARRIERS ARE NOW BEING DEPLOYED TO PREVENT VACUUM EXPOSURE! EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!" Amir heard the screams of the small handful of individuals in the arcade. The distinctive booming stride of the elcor junk merchant could be heard even over the deafening klaxon of the alarm.

"Okay...so...you got that covered...now what?" Amir hadn't come unarmed. But he wasn't prepared for a prolonged firefight. The infamous hitman only continued staring at his omnitool.

"Lemme' see where our batarian friends currently are...hmm...ah. Just entering the arcade. They'll be on us in a few minutes." Shit. Shit. Shit. Triple shit.

"How many?!"

"At least fifty."

"FIFTY?! Surveillance only counted about _twenty_!"

"Yeah, but y'all ain't seen the other thirty that been scopin' me out from that old noodle shop over yonder. They'll be joining the party, too." How could he have just stumbled into such fuckness with all his training? Amir was a soldier. One of the best. One of the finest in all the Alliance military in fact. This was true. But...this seemed like a hopeless fight. One he'd seemingly stumbled into like an amateur despite his skill set.

"Fuck!" Amir popped open his dress coat, procurring his N7 Hurricane from within and readied it.

"Ha. Knew you wouldn't come without a piece. Neither would _I_." The big man banged the side panel of the Tupari vending machine twice with his massive left fist. A false panel slid open, revealing a small armory.

"Them batarians thought they'd had me cornered. And unarmed." The giant man grabbed an M8 Avenger, an M-25 Hornet, and a tactical vest lined with spare heat sinks. He donned his gear and put out his cigarette. Well...at least he was prepared.

"Tupari! Tupari can revive deceased love ones! And murder your enemies! (TUPARI DOES NOT ENDORSE THE CRIMINAL ACT OF MURDER)" The big man laughed.

"Ha! Oh, Tupari...you have _no_ idea." The blonde brute shouldered his Avenger and suddenly grabbed the now empty vending machine with his spare hand. His powerful grip crushed the metal rim as he lifted it clean from the ground...and literally threw the massive machine down the narrow alleyway, blocking the only entry point to the alcove. Amir had been wrong. He still had the capacity to feel surprise after all.

"Holy shit! Well...uh...at...at least we got a decent kill zone." The feat of strength had shocked the young commander substantially, but he hardly had time to ruminate over it.

"That we do, commander. That we do. Get ready." Amir complied.

"What are our chances here?"

"Pretty good, actually. You just put suppressive fire on that kill zone, an' I'll handle the rest. Them boys got some decent kit, though, so don't get complacent."

" _Complacent_?! Are you fucking nuts?! This is a pretty one-sided fight!"

"Oh, ye of little faith. Oh, and commander?"

"What?!" Amir could hear the garbled shouts of batarian gunmen approaching the human duo, screaming in their strange tongue in the bazaar. Their many booted feet echoed like thunder throughout the arcade.

"Like I done said before...you ain't no good to me dead. Don't do nothin' stupid. Fire control. Just keep 'em suppressed and use your biotics when I call for 'em. Keep their heads down. You wanna' hear the truth? You'll get it. Soon as this is over." Amir nodded. It wasn't as though he had a choice anyway. A fight was inevitable, and he was a soldier above all.

The two men took cover behind each side of the narrow alcove's single passageway. Amir mouthed a silent prayer. He no longer cared about hearing the truth. He just wanted to survive this to see his wife again. The Wendigo wasn't all perturbed, though. Why wasn't he reassured by this, though?

Amir could see the batarian terrorists approaching now. All carrying high end, military grade equipment. Body armor. Likely shielded. This was going to get nasty. But the big man began roaring a challenge to them.

"YOOHOOO! OH, _BOYS_! I'M HERE! COME GET ME!" And then the massive man howled a terrifying roar that was no longer in line with his nonchalant, humorous persona.

"WOOOORRRRMMSSS!" The scream was primal. Gutteral. Its pitch changed into a horrific shriek. It reeked of rage. Agony. Madness. It frightened the young commander far more than did the enemy itself.

Amir readied his weapon as he prepared to engage the enemy. What had he gotten himself into?

* * *

Teera could see the bluish-green and brown outline (mostly brown, though) of her least favorite planet in Hierarchy controlled space: Good old Planet Edessan. It was the home of her much "beloved" flight academy. The _rebuilt_ academy, at least. From what she'd heard, the old one had been much bigger than the one from which she'd graduated. Her Praxis fighter glided silently through the void of space alongside its other three wingmates in a diamond position. The other two fighter teams in her squadron were following suit. She sighed. She hated having to come back here. After the Reapers had thoroughly glassed the hot, arid planet, not even its relatively cool polar regions were still habitable for colonization and agriculture. All that was there now was the flight academy and a handful of infantry training schools. And her squadron's current destination. Millions of turians used to live here...now...only pilots and soldiers conducting whatever training required of them frequented the scorched, spherical shithole. Teera checked herself. Millions of her people had _died_ here, defending their homes in the name of the Hierarchy, and here she was bitching to herself that she was going to have to "rough it" for a day or two.

"...but it's gonna' _suuuuuccckkkk_..." Well, that was just too bad, wasn't it? As though prompted by her complaining, her squadron's new gung-ho lieutenant-commander chimed in to address his charges.

"All teams open formation for atmospheric entry. We're approaching Edessan." No _shit_. Did he think they were fucking _blind_?

"Once we break atmosphere, all fighters scramble and break pattern. Standard grounding by anti-air fire scenario. Land your birds as rough as you can without damaging them, and all O2's put up your beacons after touchdown. O1's, arm yourselves and regroup on the nearest O2 beacon and form a squad as best you can. Let's get this done, people." All pilots affirmed and approached the planet's exosphere.

The massive desert planet's exosphere hit the cadre of twelve fighters as they breached it. Teera cut back on her thrust and started delicately applying her fighter's gravity brake. Her cockpit began to jostle and shake violently as air friction began affecting her trajectory. Soon after, her fighter's shield was alight with a fiery glow. She reduced her thrust even lower. She tapped her gravity brake to adjust her speed. Her compatriots did the same. Before long, the squadron had breached Edessan's atmosphere revealing clear, blue skies...and virtually no clouds at all. There was no longer enough water on the planet to form them. The landscape was nothing but an endless sea of desert pockmarked with countless numbers of craters likely dating back to the Reaper Wars.

"We're clear, people. Enact scramble and break. Touch down as far apart as you can. Good luck, everyone." The squadron silently complied.

Teera veered her fighter apart from her wingmates and reapplied her thrust. She scanned the scarred wasteland for a good place to land. She would've preferred a place with some shade...but it didn't look like there _was_ any. It would be pretty stupid to fly out too far from her squadron looking for some. She sighed and descended upon the flat stretch of desert underneath her and began generously applying her brake. The desert landscape soon filled the view of her cockpit. She braced for impact. The sleek bottom of her fighter skidded alongside the top of the arid wasteland, skimming lightly enough to reduce her speed. Teera took her hand off her brake. She slid her fighter for several meters until she came to a complete stop. Perfect landing. She hoped the rest of her squadron had fared the same. She took a moment to compose her thoughts and activated her fighter's thermal venting. An expanding shroud of white gas covered her fighter, cooling down the superheated metal of its exterior. Teera had heard stories of pilots having their fingers melted down to the bone or their scales fused together from coming into direct physical contact with their fighters after atmospheric entry. She shook her head. Idiots that forgot to vent. She waited a good five minutes for her fighter to cool off before popping open her cockpit.

The very second the translucent canopy of her fighter slid open, Teera felt the tortuous, oppressive heat of the planet's yellow star. She had to hurry. She popped her safety harness loose and grabbed her survival kit from behind her seat. She vaulted over the side of her now hot-to-the-touch, but otherwise non-injurious Praxis fighter down onto the soft, sun baked soil of Edessan's lovely and not at all fucking miserable desert. She looked up at the sun through the heavy tint of her helmet's visor. Not directly, of course. She wasn't a fucking idiot...but goddamn. It was _hot._ It was hotter than she'd remembered somehow. It was too hot even by turian standards. Teera knelt down onto the warm sandy soil and set down her survival kit. She opened it. She had...a first aid kit...a reasonable supply of water...a handful of nutritive food packets...and an M-9 Tempest machine pistol with a holster...and a tactical belt laden with spare thermal clips. Not exactly a cornicopia of supplies but better than nothing at all. She removed and donned her ammo belt and gun holster and undid the straps to her survival kit to create a makeshift backpack. She put it on and unholstered her weapon. Well...she was ready. Sort of.

"Lovely. Now..." She removed her helmet. The heat of the sun above her was turning it into a compartmentalized oven of sorts. Hot as it still was without it, at least her brain wasn't going to be cooked inside her skull from within her own helmet. It was a start. She was glad she wasn't a human or salarian or something. Turians didn't really need to worry about sunburn like some of the other galactic races did.

She hooked her helmet onto the back of her impromptu backpack and began checking her omnitool for any pings from a nearby beacon. She had one...it wasn't far at all. Good news. She wouldn't have to trudge through this blazing hellhole for too long. _Great_ news in fact. She remotely closed her cockpit's canopy via her omnitool and set out, trudging across the soft, warm soil of Edessan. She looked around. There was...nothing...just...desert. Beyond the occasional crater or rock, there was pretty much nothing to the place other than a seemingly endless, flat expanse of desert. No animals. No plants. Little to no noise beyond the light rustling of arid soil being blown around by the stiff breeze. Fun place. In fact, she was sure the krogan would have a veritable field day with the place.

"Why...they could race tomkahs over there. And that crater... _perfect_ for varren fights. And pretty much _everywhere_ is a gun range. They'd love it here." She chuckled at her own jokes. Did that make them unfunny? People who laughed at their jokes usually weren't that funny. She shrugged. _She_ thought they were funny. Good enough for her at least.

She continued her miserable march across the barren surface of Edessan, following the beacon's call on her omnitool...until...she saw something. A speck. Outline of something other than the occasional fucking boulder. It was a ship. One of her own. She picked up her pace a bit. Hopefully, it was Dexra. Ideally, it would be. But she was on good terms with the other three O2's enough for it to not matter much. She hastened towards the silhouette of ship. After a good five minutes of brisk marching, an endeavor that had rendered her substantially winded, she saw the silhouette of a turian figure standing next to the ship. Man, she was out of shape. Maybe the new O3 had a point. And speaking of whom...she had now gotten close enough to the turian figure to see who it was...

"Aww...fook me life..."

It was Lieutenant-Commander Braxo. The highly motivated and critical Lieutenant-Commander Braxo. Who valued all the things in his subordinates of which Teera was somewhat herself deficient. Of course, it was. It was just her luck. But he hadn't said anything about setting up a beacon himself. Why even...no. You know what? She'd just have to woman up and deal with it...professionally...and in the manner of a pilot and soldier and officer of the Turian Hierarchy's military. She reluctantly headed towards the figure of her new superior who had clearly seen her by now and was beckoning her with a wave.

This exercise wasn't off to a great start.


End file.
